A Road By Any Other Name . . .

By BETSY WITTEMANN

Published: October 19, 2003

WANT to get to Glastonbury from Hartford? Just take the Whitehead-Conland Highway south to the Christopher Columbus Highway, crossing the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge Bridge in Wethersfield. Exit at 25N. Go east, crossing over the Justin A. DeNino and the William Putnam bridges before turning south onto the Veterans of Foreign Wars Highway. If you take Exit 8 and go into the eastern portion of Glastonbury, you will be traveling the 94th Infantry Division Memorial Highway as far as the Hebron line.

Or, you can swing onto Route 17 from the VFW Highway, continuing into South Glastonbury where you will cross over Roaring Brook on the Alexander L. Bocciarelli Bridge.

The confused can just go by the map: Take Route 91 south to Route 3 east to Route 2 south to Glastonbury. Continue on Route 17 to South Glastonbury.

Highways and bridges in Connecticut have been sprouting names for a while, as the Legislature decides to honor an individual or group, but this year has been like no other. Thirty roads and bridges have been named, a record for a single year, almost twice as many as last year.

The new honors included bridges named for two men lost in the World Trade Center attack, two sections of highway named for state troopers killed in the line of duty decades ago, and a section of road named for an early explorer.

But people driving over the bridges or along the roads see the commemorative signs the Department of Transportation puts up and often wonder who these people are or why they are being honored. Christopher Columbus (Route 91 in Cromwell) is obvious, as is Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge (a bridge in Wethersfield on Route 91) But Ernest J. Morse (Route 108 in Trumbull) and Thomas DeAngelis (a bridge on Route 173 in West Hartford)?

As it turns out, many of the honorees are obscure and some never even lived in the state. Having a road named after you is an honor, but it's not all that difficult to get. Just get a state senator or representative to sponsor the legislation and it's pretty much a done deal. No one can remember the last time a request was rejected.

''When you name so many things, you take some of the honor away from it,'' said State Representative Jacqueline M. Cocco, a Democrat of Bridgeport and a chairwoman on the Legislature's transportation committee. ''Ten years ago it wasn't so easy.''

Take the case of Leif Erickson. Erickson, the Norse explorer who set foot in the New World about 500 years before Columbus, has a highway named after him in eastern Connecticut because a college professor thought it was a good idea.

Brent Maynard, professor at Three Rivers Community College in Norwich and the instigator, said the idea came to him after he drove on a portion of road known as the Christopher Columbus Highway and noticed the sign.

''I've developed an interest in the Vikings,'' explained Mr. Maynard of Moosup, who teaches chemistry. He acknowledged that Leif Ericson ''never set foot in Connecticut and most likely was only in Canada. But I saw there was a Christopher Columbus Highway and certainly he never set foot in Connecticut.''

His petition was brought before the Legislature's transportation committee by his state representative, Michael Caron of Killingly. The heads of the committee, Senator Biagio Ciotto, a Democrat of Wethersfield, and Representative Cocco, experienced a little kidding about who was the real founder of the New World: the Italians' Columbus or the Scandinavians' Ericson (or Erickson, as it is spelled in the Public Act 03-115).

The new Leif Erickson Highway is the portion of Route 101 between Abington and East Killingly. It was chosen, said Mr. Maynard, simply because it was ''a road in our legislative district that was available.''

Like most of the others, it was approved without debate.

''I can't remember one being turned down,'' Mr. Ciotto said, referring to requests received since 1996, the years he has been cochairman of the committee.

Two names accepted by the committee in 2003 were for state troopers who died in the line of duty. One was Trooper Ernest J. Morse, shot by the driver of a stolen car after he stopped it on the Merritt Parkway in Trumbull on Feb. 13, 1953. Now, a section of Route 108 in Trumbull, running from the Stratford/Trumbull line north to Route 711, has been designated the Trooper Ernest Morse Memorial Highway.

The second, a section of Route 173 in West Hartford, now is known as the Trooper Carl P. Moller Memorial Highway. Moller was hit and killed by a truck while stopping to assist a stranded motorist on Route 84 in West Hartford on Sept. 13, 1976. Both officers were honored after a retired state policeman pushed for it last year.

This year saw several commemorations for World Trade Center victims. Two victims have had bridges crossing Route 84 in West Hartford named for them.

One is for Joseph Lenihan, 41, a vice president in a banking and finance company in the World Trade Center. Although living in Greenwich with his wife and children at the time, Mr. Lenihan had grown up in West Hartford, and Senator Kevin Sullivan of West Hartford, president pro tem of the Senate and a friend of the family, said he thought a commemorative naming was in order. Bridge No. 1748 on Mayflower Road crossing Route 84 bears the name Joseph Lenihan Memorial Bridge.